The present invention relates to the field of software application installation automation. More specifically, it relates to the field of automated generation of installation instructions and installation documentation for software application interfaces.
Software applications are typically designed to execute within an environment created by an operating system. Numerous methods have been proposed and implemented to automate the installation of software applications into those environments, including documenting the install process. Although numerous methods and systems have been proposed in the prior art to automate many of the stages of software application development such as testing or library version maintenance, creation of the installation instructions for an executable software application, usually a final step in software application creation, has been largely underdeveloped.
Creation of software application installation documentation such as for a software interface application is not a simple task. Care must be taken to include documentation of all files associated with the software application, their respective expected or required installation destination, e.g. directory or folder, and the like. Software tools of the prior art may address creation of portions of the installation process but focus on packaging the software itself for the install, e.g. by supplying a “laundry list” of what goes where when the software is installed.
The prior art also requires an initial authoring of documentation including installation documentation followed by manual technical edits, one or more processes to include the edited documentation in a larger overall manual, distribution of the documentation, and ongoing maintenance and support. In times of updates to the software application, revision of installation documentation can be costly and involve a significant investment in labor and time.
As used herein, an “integration engine” is a software environment, as that term is understood by those of ordinary skill in the software programming arts, that allows integration and/or interoperability of disparate applications, e.g. a patient tracking application that can coexist with a separate billing application. These disparate applications may be executable in an identical operating system environment or in different operating system environments and may have compatible or incompatible data file formats.
As further used herein, an “interface” comprises software applications that provide a set of integration engine capabilities. By way of example and not limitation, one or more interfaces executing in an integration engine may provide two other software applications that could otherwise not operate cooperatively with the ability to operate cooperatively, including in real-time, and pass data between those systems, including providing for protocol translations and data mapping between the application systems.
In a typical prior art software application installation, an installation interface is created to help users install the software application both accurately and easily. Creation of such an installation interface typically comprises creating an installation “wizard” as that term is understood by those of ordinary skill in the software programming arts, such as by using a wizard-making facility within the MICROSOFT® VISUAL STUDIO environment. Creation of the wizard typically further comprises creation of installation prompts a software application installer must answer to set up environment specific values, by way of example and not limitation including a name of an environment being connected to, TCP/IP addresses, file locations, and the like.
A further typical component of making an installation interface is the creation and distribution of end-user installation documentation. However, creating such user documentation for installing interfaces on an integration engine is a typically manual process, e.g. a developer must document the steps that an installer must follow to successfully install an interface. Moreover, a manual update of installation documentation occurs every time a change is introduced to an interface where the install procedures are changed. This process is time consuming and lends itself to having documentation and the software being out of sync. This process is also prone to error because often a plurality of people write it, usually over time, and the documentation is based on each person's interpretation of the software, whether or not it is accurate or agrees with the prior interpretations.
There is therefore a need to automatically generate the documentation necessary for a software application installation, e.g. scripts, once a software application is completed or updated where the processes do not focus on packaging the software for the install and supplying a “laundry list.” There is also a need to reduce manual technical edits as well as reduce processes to include the edited documentation in a larger overall manual, distribution of the documentation, and ongoing support.
Accordingly, there is a need for an automated installation instructions generation tool that provides an installer with installation considerations based on configuration information that are resolved before going forward with the install. There is also a need for an automated installation instructions generation tool that documents prompts that will be asked of the installer the install progresses.